Turnover slowed to a trickle as investors began to balance their books and allowed themselves time to take a look at future strategy. As a result, the FTSE 100 index was left nursing a loss of 17.9 at 6306.3 although dealers reported little in the way of selling pressure.

Shares of steelmaker were suspended at 607p now the takeover by Indian rival Tata Steel has been completed. Corus drops out of the Footsie 100 today, to be replaced by , down 12p at 1268p.

Stock market bears have caught a cold in following the breakdown in bid talks. The shares slumped 27p to 620p on the news. The life assurer conceded in November it was looking for a buyer. It is reckoned to have had talks with rival , 3p better at 717p, and , up p at 327p, but failed to agree a price.

Broker has repeated its buy rating on Resolution and says the breakdown in talks will free the company to communicate its strategy to the market more clearly.

was another big faller, losing 6.1p to 135.5p as boss Arun Sarin warned of a slump in margins at its UK mobile phone business. Talking to brokers in the City and Frankfurt today, Sarin warned of increased competition.

fell 12p to 486p as private-equity outfit Texas Pacific Group swooped on Spanish carrier Iberia. BA owns a stake in Iberia, and has first refusal on the sale of another sizeable minority stake. But BA must now rethink any plans it had for a tieup with Iberia.

was p lower at 1026p on news of the improved terms from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and its own deputy chairman Stefano Pessina, who owns 15% of the shares.

Dresdner Kleinwort has downgraded , 5p adrift at 483p, from buy to add on valuation grounds in the wake of yesterday’s strong trading update. But the target price has been raised from 500p to 524p.

The broker says BSS performed well last year in terms of organic growth and with the benefit of recent acquisitions and this trend looks set to continue. It has raised its pre-tax profit forecasts by 1m, with a 600,000 increase for the following year.

Venture capitalist and investment manager was among more than half a dozen companies to make their public debut on Aim today following a placing of 3.99m shares by Panmure Gordon at 160p, valuing the company at 21.45m. The shares started trading at 162p and touched 174p.

Also making its debut was the commercial property investor and latest vehicle of Desmond Bloom. A total of 111m shares were placed at 1.4p and the price more than doubled to 2p. The group has also made its first acquisition with the purchase of 10 pubs for 4.5m.

Aim-listed , up 4p at 28p, has signed the production sharing agreement for the development of the offshore Block 7 oil prospect in Tanzania. It forged the deal with the government of Tanzania and state-run Tanzanian Petroleum Development. Block 7 covers 8500 sq km. Dominion will spend at least $8.75m (4.5m) to hunt for oil on the site over a four-year period. In clinching the deal, Dominion fought off some fierce competition from the likes of oil giant Chevron and Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras.

advanced 9p to 319p on the back of a bullish trading update. Altium Securities says trading was in line with expectations, but emphasised that the pipeline for new restaurant sites remained strong. The company is raising 4.3m by way of a placing at 300p. Altium has repeated its buy rating.

———————-

TAKING STOCK

BANKING AND FINANCE
is locked in a legal battle with Deutsche Bank, alleging it poached 16 employees from its fixedincome team. says the defections are serious for the fund manager. Fixed-income handles about $100bn (51bn) of the $500bn under management. Amvescap has been winning new money in this area.

BUILDING AND PROPERTY
is to move into the housebuilding sector. The office developer’s huge departure will see it build the housing element of the Ebbsfleet regeneration in north Kent. The company has opted to go it alone on the contract rather than tie up in a joint venture with a housebuilder, Building magazine reports today.

CONSUMER
Panmure Gordon has raised from sell to hold on the back of yesterday’s trading update. The sugar giant said trading had been in line with market expectations and had continued to comfortably exceed the same period last year. This follows January’s profits warning, which was blamed on slower growth of Sucralose sales.

ENGINEERING
Panmure Gordon has repeated its buy rating and 535p target on after the shipbuilder and support services group said trading for the year to 31 March had been ‘in line with board expectations’. It has seen continued growth throughout its support services businesses. The broker says there is 13% upside to its 535p target.

HEALTH
Drugs discovery firm says its chief executive Steven Lee has paid 12,900 for 10,000 extra shares at 129p each. That lifts his total holding to 158,148 shares, or less than 1% of the company. VASTox revealed this week that Roche, and Merz will present scientific data gathered using its Zebrafish technology platform.

INDUSTRIALS
A bidding war may be about to break out over Spanish fag maker , which is the target of a 7bn offer from Imperial. Altadis shares were marked higher on the Spanish bourse yesterday amid claims rival British American Tobaccomay team up with venture capitalists CVC Capital, Cinven and PAI over a possible bid for Altadis.

LEISURE
The House of Lords decision to block 17 new casinos under the Gambling Act could be good news for . says the Government may now separate the 16 small and large casinos from the supercasino, which will reduce the competitive impact on Rank and restrict supply into the market. The broker has repeated its buy rating.

MEDIA
Californiabnaires Ron Burkle and Eli Broad today increased to $8.2bn (4.2bn) their takeover offer for US newspapers and television giant Tribune, owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and a host of TV companies. The deal tops a rival bid from Chicago property titan Sam Zell.

NATURAL RESOURCES
is raising C$152.4m (55.2m) through the issue of 30m shares at C$5.08 each. The oil and gas company said the net proceeds will be used to fund its 2007 capital budget and as working capital. It needs to raise more than 500m to extract gas reserves from its venture in the Algerian desert.

RETAIL
WestLB has repeated its reduce holding on following news of last year’s drop in profits. The broker says the current premium rating for the shares, and the uncertainties in France - where fourth-quarter margins were down 200 basis points - prevent it from taking a positive view of the stock at this stage.

SUPPORT SERVICES
A better-than-expected trading update from received well-rounded praise from the City and indicated the independent caterer may have turned the corner. Credit Suisse has upgraded from neutral to and raised its target from 285p to 370p. is pleased that so much progress has been made on margins.

TECHNOLOGY
has begun coverage of with a buy rating and 190p target. It says growth in the broadband and internet protocol in cable and telecom networks should drive growth in demand for the group’s Deep Packet Inspection-based solutions. Sandvine helps residential broadband providers manage network security.

TELECOMS
Vodafone boss Arun Sarin has begun a series of broker presentations at which he will make known the impact on profits of growing competition on the UK and German arms and the need to reduce costs. He must convince that Vodafone is not neglecting two of its biggest markets following the purchase of India’s Hutchison Essar.

TRANSPORT
The rail regulator’s quarterly report shows all the UK rail sectors achieved growth in passenger kilometres, total passenger journeys and revenue in the third quarter of 2006 compared with the year before. Long-distance passenger kilometres and journeys increased by 7% and 7.2% respectively, between the third quarters of 2005-6 and 2006-7.

UTILITIES
National Grid’s latest trading update has revealed rising costs and debts now totalling 11.8bn. It overshadowed reassurances that operating profits will be up when the group unveils full-year figures in May. appears unimpressed and has repeated its neutral rating, warning the higher costs and debts will hurt the shares.

Other stories:
Market report: Thursday close
Mid-week share tips
Taking stock: Market news in brief
Yesterday’s trading: Carphone sell-off

Merger and acquisition activity continues to drive share prices forward on both sides of the Atlantic and already this year the value of global takeovers has topped the 1 trillion level - that’s 60% ahead of last year’s record pace.

Insurer Royal & Sun Alliance yesterday found itself back on dealers’ takeover radar, touching 170p before closing 1p off at 168p. The September sale of its troubled American business and the removal of its pension deficit has made it a much more attractive bid target. In March it reported betterthanexpected profits and a 25% increase.

RSA has been mentioned as a possible private equity target on more than one occasion but Finnish insurer Sampo was the name in the frame again. Last November it sold its banking business to Danish Danske Bank, so that it could concentrate on its insurance operations. Sampo’s chief executive is Bjorn Wahlroos, one of the richest individuals in Finland. He apparently has sufficient backing to launch a 5bn-plus offer for RSA.

Red hot rumours of a 16 a share bid approach from the secretive Barclay Brothers lifted InterContinental Hotels 106p to 1372p. Turnover swelled to 31m amid afternoon speculation the Barclays’ were adding to their 9.16% stake. There was talk that the pair were buying more stock in order to flush out another interested party, possibly Prince Talal Bin AbdulAziz Alsaud, founder and chairman of Kingdom Hotels.

The Footsie retreated 9.1 points to 6559.5 on profit-taking after doom and gloom Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned about yet more UK interest rate rises. Rates were raised a quarter point to a six-year high of 5% last week.

There were fun and games across the Pond as wonderful Wall Street surged a further 56.9 points to a record 13,440.7 in early trading.

Brokers in New York were gobsmacked as banking giant Citigroup soared 3.5% at the opening on hearing that hedge Edward Lampert, better known as the chairman of Sears Holdings, splashed out 400m on acquiring more than 15m shares in the giant bank.

They then heard that the one and only George Soros had doubled his shareholding in Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, to 415,000 shares. Obviously both billionaires still believe markets have further to run.

Miner Rio Tinto bounced back with a speculative gain of 90p to 3570p as punters responded to talk of a bid from Brazil’s Cia Vale do Rio Doce, the world’s biggest iron ore miner.

Properties were friendless after Land Securities (83p down at 1935p) warned that growth in the investment property market was slowing. Hammerson, strongly supported of late on bid hopes, lost 42p to 1598p and Slough Estates 18p to 750p. British Land cheapened 32p to 1458p.

Nervous selling ahead of today’s full-year results left BT 4p off at 315p.

Best of the FTSE 250 bunch was Spirent Communications, up 3p at 77p after UBS lifted its target price to 90p from 74p. Rumours of an imminent disposal helped engineer FKI rise 3p to 129p.

Autonomy spiked 15p to 769p as dealers heard that shares in offshoot Blinkx will be place on Aim at 35p-45p - the higher end of market forecasts. Blinkx includes Autonomy’s demerged consumer unit and rumours have been rife of late that Microsoft is ready to pounce.

Investors continued to leave PartyGaming in their droves following the recent profits warning. The close was 4 p down at 40p. The online gaming concern has lost a number of high rollers who have deserted its sites for rivals that have more punters playing for larger stakes.

MyHome International, the Mrs Mopp cleaning firm, jumped 10p to 85p. Interims pleased and the company has launched an window cleaning to run alongside its established franchise brands such as Autosheen, Ovenclean and Surface Doctor.

Global media group Entertainment Rights skipped p higher to 32p following the appointment of Deborah Dugan, the former Disney President of Worldwide Publishing, as chief executive of its North American operations.

Placed on PLUS Markets at 1p by broker Hichens Harrison, shares of shell company Running River should make sparks fly today. The latest vehicle of James Burgess, who was behind successful energy shells Zari and Zareba, invests in hydro-electricity projects. These employ the greener method known as ‘run of river’ which creates power by diverting water from a river down a pipeline to spin a turbine, without a dam.

Other stories:
Stamp duty scrap ‘inevitable’
French Connection hit by wholesale worry
Next shares on the slide after slump
Sainsbury’s profits soar
Misys sells Sesame to Friends Provident
Shareholders fume at Shell Nigeria crisis
DSG writes off 200m italian job
City Focus: Hunter Hanson falls to Germans
Australian rival snaps up troubled iSoft
Train firm says shareholders come first
Compass boss takes aim at old guard

And while such a deal could take some time to cement, the prospect was enough to persuade powerful US hedge funds, which hold about a 20 per cent stake in the LSE, to reject Nasdaq’s 1243p-a-share offer.

The failure of the bid by the New York high-tech market is regarded as a triumph for LSE chief executive Clara Furse, who has seen off a succession of predators, ranging from OM of Sweden to Frankfurt’s Deutsche Borse.

Over the past two years, shares in the LSE have soared from 450p to a high of 1344p last month. On Friday, they closed at 1282p, still well above Nasdaq’s final offer. The sharp rise in the value of the LSE vindicates Furse’s tough line in rejecting a wave of lower bids.

Nasdaq will formally concede defeat tomorrow after persuading virtually none of the LSE’s shareholders to accept its bid.

This could put pressure on chief executive Bob Greifeld, whose aggressive tactics and arrogant approach to the bid is seen as a major contribution to its failure.

His decision to go hostile in November and his assumption the LSE would sit down and talk after such an aggressive approach are now seen as major tactical errors.

Greifeld’s remarks that he would consider joining a banking consortium, Project Turquoise, to set up in competition against Furse were seen as rebounding badly on Nasdaq, especially as it would devalue its own 28.8 per cent in the LSE.

From the platform of such a large shareholding, Nasdaq was initially expected to win the battle, but over the months, LSE has successfully argued that its share price reflected its record-breaking performance and the possibility of more lucrative deals ahead.

US hedge funds, led by American investor Samuel Heyman, were inclined to believe the LSE. Some analysts reckon the shares could rise as high as 1500p.

Other stories:
LSE hits at inconsistent Nasdaq
LSE set to see off Nasdaq bid
Nasdaq in for the long haul over LSE
Nasdaq hopes for LSE dimming
Nasdaq won’t raise LSE bid
Nasdaq blasts LSE top duo
LSE 250m to reject Nasdaq

Under The Radar and Undervalued. Mining MarketWatch Journal has published a review that breaks down the metrics behind the Metanor Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MTO), offering insight and opportunity afforded investors as it approaches becoming a gold producer utilizing their 100% owned Bachelor Lake Gold Mill in the prolific Abitibi Mining District of Quebec.

Seattle, WA (http://www.prweb.com/) February 13, 2007 — Mining MarketWatch Journal has published a review that breaks down the metrics behind the Metanor Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MTO), offering insight and opportunity afforded investors as it approaches becoming a gold producer utilizing their 100% owned Bachelor Lake Gold Mill in the prolific Abitibi Mining District of Quebec. A copy of the informative piece may be viewed free of charge at http://www.miningmarketwatch.net/mto.htm .

Editors notes from the review: “With over 400,000 oz of Gold (NI-43-101 measured and indicated) available from their 100% owned Barry gold deposit and Bachelor Lake Gold Mine, Metanor Resources is about to kick start their gold milling facility producing a projected 60K oz gold per annum. Their gold milling facility has a replacement value of 60M and sits geographically as the only mill located within 200 km in a gold rich district that possesses resources exceeding 1.5M oz. Metanor has also begun amassing properties within this area, near their Bachelor Lake Gold Mine & Mill, and will play a central role mining the resources in the region for decades. With less than 31M shares outstanding, and currently trading under 1/share, the present valuation provides exceptional opportunity for investors. Undervalued and under the radar, the time to pay attention is now as is evident from Metanors recent press release dated Jan. 29, 2007 which details their plan of action. Metanor has also recently updated their corporate presentation which showcases expected revenues of 35,000,000 per annum.”

Excerpts from the review: “Initial cash flow from production will be used to further develop the enormous potential at the Bachelor Lake Gold Mine which produced over 131,000 oz of gold during the 1980s, it currently has resources of 300,000 oz Au and is open in all directions at depth with plans to upgrade to 1,000,000 oz ? According to Metanors VP of Development, Jessie Morin, current depth of the shaft at the Bachelor Lake Gold Mine is 1,700 feet, the shaft will be sunk an additional 600 feet to a depth of 2,300 feet and a 20,000 meter drill program is expected to add an additional 700,000 ounces of resources. Area miners such as Aur Resources Inc. and Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. are currently mining at depths of between 5,000 and 8,000 feet. The gold grade at the Bachelor Lake property increases at depth and the strike is open in all directions at the 2,300 foot mark. … Mr. Jessie Morin, has many years of mining experience with an expertise in both underground development and shaft sinking. Prior to joining Metanor Resources, Mr. Morin built mills for several area miners including Cambior (now owned by Breakwater), Aur Resources and BHP Billiton Ltd. ? Using 600 per oz gold, the Bachelor Lake mill will generate revenues in excess of 35,000,000 a year once upgraded to handle 750 tpd producing in excess of 60,000 oz gold per year with an average estimated cost per oz by Mining MarketWatch of less than 325 oz; this justifies a share price in excess of 5/share based on conservative P/E ratios. Additionally Metanor currently trades near 1 per share and has a current market cap that equals value of their Bachelor Lake Gold Mill structure alone (appraised at 28M depreciated value with a replacement value of 60M including headframe and all surface equipment). Metanor possesses known resources between the Barry Deposit and Bachelor Lake of over 400,000 oz + over 100,000 oz historic at the Hewfran extension but more importantly the Bachelor Lake Gold Mine has a proven geological model that is open in all directions at depth with plans to upgrade to 1,000,000 oz. …MTO is in line for a serious price change to the upside.”

A copy of the informative piece may be viewed free of charge at http://www.miningmarketwatch.net/mto.htm .

This release may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events that involve risk and uncertainties. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual events or results. Articles, excerpts, commentary and reviews herein are for information purposes and are not solicitations to buy or sell and of the securities mentioned. Readers are referred to the terms of use, disclaimer and disclosure section at the bottom of the following URL http://www.miningmarketwatch.net/mto.htm .

Steve Esom, who quit as managing director of Waitrose this week, comes in as director of food. Carl Leaver, previously chief executive of De Vere Group, joins as director of international business. He replaces Richard Wolff, who is retiring after 36 years with the company.

Both men join the executive committee that reports in to the threestrong board of Rose, marketing director Steve Sharp and finance chief Ian Dyson.

Although Rose has not formally said when he will go, there is gossip in the City that he will step down at the age of 60. The 58-year-old is credited with turning M&S around after years in the doldrums.

But an M&S spokeswoman denied the shake-up was an attempt by Rose to identify his favoured successor, saying: ‘Stuart is not going anywhere.’

The biggest winner from the changes seems to be Kate Bostock, the well-regarded director of womenswear and girlswear who now adds lingerie to her brief. Bostock, 49, is now in a strong position to become the first female chief executive of the famed High Street retailer.

Biggest loser from the radical overhaul is Anthony Thompson, the director of retail, who has been unceremoniously ousted.

It was rumoured a while ago that Thompson had fallen out with Rose and was considering his position. The company said it did not know if he had a job to go to and declined to discuss his severance terms.

Thompson joined M&S in 1983, later moving to accountants Arthur Andersen and then the Gap. He left Gap to rejoin M&S in 2003.

Matt Hudson, previously part of the executive team that reported to Rose as director of lingerie, gets a sideways shift. He will now report to Bostock as director of trading for womenswear, lingerie and girlswear.

M&S insists this is not a demotion for Hudson, pointing out that he has key responsibility for a part of the business that brings in sales of 3bn a year.

Guy Farrant, head of food, also moves sideways to become director of retail and outlets.

The shake-up is the second attempt in recent weeks by Rose to add firepower to his top team. In early April it emerged that he sought to poach fashion boss Terry Green, an old friend and rival, to lead an overhaul of M&S’s fashion lines.

Green, who flirted with the idea, later decided to stay put at Tesco.

Said Rose: ‘We are bringing new talent into M&S to work alongside our existing senior team in order to drive the business through its next stage of growth.’

M&S grabbed the attention of the City most recently when Rose hinted that he was pondering a bid for . The company later had to backtrack.

The retailer is due to report full-year profits on 22 May and City analysts expect them to come in at around 960m.

Other stories:
M&S to launch eco-store
The M&S top made from 11 plastic bottles
Heading for the checkout?
‘Frustrated’ M&S director heads for exit
M&S moves to plug pension gap
M&S’s five-year eco-warrior plan
M&S wipes floor with rivals
M&S ‘out of intensive care’